Opinion Vs Debate

April 01, 2009|By: CUTTY SARK

I have a suggestion here. This forum allows for many of us to anonymously state our views on current events within our community and nation. Since there is an obvious divide between the liberals and conservatives in here, and since this inevitably devolves into personal attacks, I suggest we do the following. We permit the free expression of opinion. We permit a response to that opinion. One response per blogger. Thats it. No debates. No back and forth endlessly. Debating issues never solves anything in this type of format.

For the vast majority of bloggers our minds are made up. The endless debate and ideological "tit for tat" inevitably devolves into personal attacks.

So I recommend we allow full and free statements of opinion, even the posting of links to other pages we find interesting. Then we allow one blogger one opportunity to respond. Period.

I make a post about universal health care. A conservative opposes it. Period.

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A conservative makes a post against Obama: I oppose that statement. Period.

Where there is agreement to a post, then perhaps we should allow a blogger to make more than one post in support of that view.

The problem comes where there is opposition to what has been said. After allowing each individual blogger the opportunity to oppose what has been said, what further use is there in allowing an additional 10 or 20 posts in an endless ideological debate which wont change minds and which becomes personal?

In addition, terms which I have used liberal "trailer park" or "redneck" will not be used again. But also some of the personal insults thrown against me shouldnt occur either. And lets now start that old game about "well you started it first".

No matter who started what first, IF we call ourselves adults, then we should simply move on from here and not endlessly revisit the past.